Physical Artifacts Research Articles

A Meta-model for Product-Service System based on Systems Engineering approach

Manufacturers are currently moving towards a transition from product-oriented to more complex types of product-services to improve their place in the market of solution providing. In this context, focusing on the added value rather than physical artefacts is a competitive capability for companies. PSS development involves considering the guaranteed function as well as the supportive facilitators to ease its availability and operation. Consequently, distinguishing between the PSS core elements and related Enabling Systems is crucial for the consistency of the development and operation phases. Because of the heterogeneity of PSS components and their functional boundaries, a standards-based approach is necessary to support the integration of the final system. In this matter, Systems Engineering (SE) is used as a standard guide to define a semantic meta-model as a preliminary framework for the formalisation of PSS through life knowledge. A simple scenario from the industrial use case is conducted to illustrate the applicability of the proposed modelling framework.

Service Management Dilemma: Dependencies on Intermediary Fields between Goods and Services

TFrequently, issues of uncertainties and its dynamics are related to outsourcing in the domain of facilities management (FM) as well as the various activities of the core business. The concept of core business has frequently been discussed in the last decades when companies in the service sector have grown in significance. Service management has been accepted as a research discipline where “intangible service†is regarded as an opposite to “tangible goods†. Rented spaces, for instance, can be regarded as a service if it is exchangeable with other spaces with the aim to optimize the users’ satisfaction. The boundaries are in fact indistinct between (1) core business vs. support activities on one side and (2) between pure service (intangibility) and physical artifacts (tangibility) on the other side. This article discusses the relevance of conceptualizing intermediary fields of the factors mentioned above (Factor (1) and Factor (2)) and discusses the interdependence of the factors, which is conceptualized in a model. It is argued that increased knowledge and attention to the discussed intermediary field would contribute to a larger understanding of outsourcing topics in FM and Service management.

From the Editor

From the Editor Andy Cain This issue features an eclectic blend of path-breaking articles which run the topical and methodological gamut and which offer new solutions to age-old problems and invite us to rethink and revise established scholarly orthodoxy. Richard Flower leads off with a study on the fourth-century heresiologist Epiphanius of Salamis and his construction of textualized authority. Flower argues that in casting his Panarion as a handbook in the august tradition of Greek medical literature (especially the poetry of Nicander of Colophon), Epiphanius was making a calculated move to represent himself as a skilled clinician capable of identifying and refuting heresy in its countless instantiations. Remaining on the topic of heresy, Evgenïa Moiseeva re-opens the long-running debate about the Manichaean treatment of the Old Testament. Contending that modern scholars tend to be uncritically trusting of early Christian polemical writers in ascribing to Manichaeans en masse a wholesale rejection of the Old Testament as the product of Satan, she demonstrates that this hardline stance reflects later developments in the Manichaean tradition rather than Mani's original teaching. With Craig Gibson's article we pivot to an important elemental dimension of intellectual culture in Late Antiquity: the social dynamics of rhetorical education. Gibson explores progymnasmata and declamations—mainstay exercises in the advanced rhetorical curriculum—as cultural artifacts. He argues that they had an ethical aim in addition to a purely technical one in that they trained (elite) young men how to deploy the art of rhetoric for the public good and to promote wholesome community values. The next two articles are concerned with unmasking identities—in the one case, the authorship of a text, and in the other, the purpose and function of a physical structure. Massimiliano Vitiello takes a new look at a Theodosian law against the practice of male prostitution. He proposes that the civil functionary responsible for drafting it is none other than Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, whose own literary sensibilities bleed over into the text of the law. Turning from matters philological to archaeological, David Walsh argues that a structure excavated at Butt Road, Colchester, which traditionally has been identified as a Christian church, is in all likelihood a late fourth- or early fifth-century mithraeum, one of many such Mithraic sanctuaries that were springing up in Britain and throughout the western provinces during this period. The final two papers take us to late Roman North Africa. In the first one, Jeremiah Coogan revisits the controversy between the Caecilianists and [End Page 249] Donatists with a fresh perspective. Employing recent insights from book studies, Coogan nuances our understanding of this controversy by pinpointing exactly why traditio of the scriptures was viewed by many Christians as such a damnable act: the sacred book was not simply a physical artifact but the avatar of divine truth and presence, and so handing over the Bible really was tantamount to handing over Christ himself. Finally, in his article Paolo Tedesco turns our attention to the dynamics of the economy in North Africa from the fourth century on. Through a meticulous analysis of legal, numismatic, and other evidence he illustrates that elites were able to control the commercialized production of key cash crops by relying on a strategic combination of slave-labor and wage-labor, the latter of which, Tedesco shows, contributed significantly to economic expansion in general. [End Page 250] Copyright © 2018 Johns Hopkins University Press

From Tradition to Innovation: Indigenous West African Textiles in Creative Interior Application

This design experiments convert indigenous West African textile design elements from a limited application in clothing into a breadth of interior design pieces that are expected to have a wider appeal. Textile designing is an integral part of textile production in West Africa and by far the most predominant art practice in the region. Textile production techniques vary from one place to another in the region and some of the common techniques are tie-dyeing, tritik, batik, indigo dying, embroidery, patchwork, applique, discharge dyeing, direct printing and resist printing. Designs are developed from sources such as body paintings and tattooing, indigenous symbols, proverbs, occasions and major events, important personalities, natural and artificial objects. Other textile design forms have also evolved from textures produced by the actual processes of fabric construction and the effects of colour variations of yarns such as stripes, bars and checks. However, fabrics are designed mainly for clothing and to some extent craft items and that limits the patronage and application of those fabrics. Furthermore, the processes of designing and production are mainly manual and so reproduction or uniformity in mass productions and mass customisation is besieged with lots of challenges. These design experiments take a more comparative view of the indigenous West African fabrics and the central motifs in the design compositions are Adinkra and Adire and the background referenced Bogolanfini symbols. The human centred design approach was adopted for the practical experiments; it entails as a step-by-step guide to externalise creativity, taken cognisance of the people the designs are meant for. The background data came largely from documentation, archival records, and observation of physical artefacts. This project experiments with a breadth of materials such as lycra, canvas, soft velvet fabrics, foam, wood and techniques for a range of products such as retro chairs, cushions and wall panels.

3D Scanning and 3D Printing Technologies used in Albanian Heritage Preservation

In cultural heritage study of 3D modeling has become a very useful process to obtain indispensable data for documentation and visualization. 3D scanning and 3D printing suggest a vital solution in preserving and sustaining traditional folk costumes. 3D scanning and 3D digitizing is defined as the process of using metrological methods to ascertain the size and shape of a scanned object, which may often involve an optical device that rotates around the desired scanned model. In digital preservation, especially for three dimensional physical artifacts in various crafts, the geometric shape of an object is most important. The aim of this paper is to show 3D scanning technology that produces a high-precision digital reference document to provide virtual model for replication, and makes possible easy mass distribution of digital data. We also experimented with 3d Additive manufacturing or 3D printing to show a way to actualize digital forms of folk accessories for the experimental manufacturing and to show a way how to preserve nowadays the original object. The work includes scanning, modeling, and printing of waist coat and of coin handicrafts. Experiments will be carried out on 3d scanning, 3d modeling software, reconstruction and fabrication -rapid prototyping.

3D Scanning and 3D Printing Technologies used in Albanian Heritage Preservation

In cultural heritage study of 3D modeling has become a very useful process to obtain indispensable data for documentation and visualization. 3D scanning and 3D printing suggest a vital solution in preserving and sustaining traditional folk costumes. 3D scanning and 3D digitizing is defined as the process of using metrological methods to ascertain the size and shape of a scanned object, which may often involve an optical device that rotates around the desired scanned model. In digital preservation, especially for three dimensional physical artifacts in various crafts, the geometric shape of an object is most important. The aim of this paper is to show 3D scanning technology that produces a high-precision digital reference document to provide virtual model for replication, and makes possible easy mass distribution of digital data. We also experimented with 3d Additive manufacturing or 3D printing to show a way to actualize digital forms of folk accessories for the experimental manufacturing and to show a way how to preserve nowadays the original object. The work includes scanning, modeling, and printing of waist coat and of coin handicrafts. Experiments will be carried out on 3d scanning, 3d modeling software, reconstruction and fabrication -rapid prototyping.

Understanding sustainability in school arts provision: stakeholder perspectives in Australian primary schools

ABSTRACTAlthough the notion of sustainability is popular in rhetoric associated with arts programmes in Australian schools, shared meanings are lacking. References to sustainability may be rooted in any combination of pragmatic, economic and/or health bases. We chose to investigate what stakeholders involved in the provision of school-based arts practices understood about the notion of sustainability in the specific context of those programmes. To do this we interviewed a range of school professionals and asked them to explain how sustainability related to arts programmes in their schools. In this article we present the particular elements that stakeholders described as being sustainable. Five categories emerged through inductive analysis that included: benefits for students, benefits for the schools, the arts programmes themselves, physical artefacts, and the capacity for schools to provide arts experiences. Notable were descriptions of sustainability from several schools that saw ongoing programmes as less important than brief arts experiences that students could carry into other areas of their life. Results illustrate the diversity of understandings about what should be sustained from arts engagement for 27 professionals in Australian Catholic Primary Schools. An ‘exposure’ model of arts programmes is articulated that captures the sustainable benefits beyond sustained involvement in and provision of arts programmes in primary schools.

Shybo – Design of a Research Artefact for Human-robot Interaction Studies

This article discusses the role of Design Research in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Notably, the Research through Design (RtD) approach is proposed as a valuable method to develop HRI research artefacts due to the importance of having a physical artefact, a robot, that enables direct interaction. Moreover, there is a growing interest in HRI for design methodologies as methods for investigation. The article presents an example of a design process, focused on hands-on activities, namely sketching, 3D modelling, prototyping, and documenting. These making practices were applied to the development of Shybo, a small sound-reactive robot for children. Particular attention has been given to the five prototypes that led to the definition of the current solution. Morphological, behavioral, and interaction aspects were investigated throughout the whole process. Each phase of the design process was then documented with the intent of sharing potentially replicable practices and contributing to the understanding of the role that RtD can play in HRI.

Towards an Ontological Model for Technological Systems Structure Representation

More and more distribution companies need a model to efficiently retrieve physical technological systems. Building ontologies as knowledge representation models with respect to technological systems information is increasingly seen as a key to enable interoperability between software agents and people on the Web or through to network connections. This work presents a first step for the development of an ontological model for technological systems structure representation composed by physical artifacts. The goal of the work is twofold. First, the structure of these systems is described. Besides, a model to adapt the known Bill of Materials (BOM) to the needs of distribution companies focused not only on selling physical artifacts but also to correctly configure a technological system is presented. Finally, our approach proposes a mereotopological relationships set to model the interactions between the parts that make up the structure.

ARCHITECTURAL AND URBAN HERITAGE IN THE DIGITAL AGE: DILEMMAS OF AUTHENTICITY, ORIGINALITY AND REPRODUCTION

The archaeology of our built heritage is centred on the understanding of human experiences, rituals and social history that add meaningful narratives to physical fabric, structures and artefacts. The meaning of the building in the collective memory is intrinsically attached to the process by which it was produced and the manner with which it endured a series of critical socio-cultural change. Whilst we cannot live in the past, engaging with historic buildings or walking through traditional urban fabric and alleyways becomes an essential asset of the contemporary urban experience. This paper interrogates the dilemmas of authenticity, originality and legitimacy of the preservation of architectural and urban heritage through digital and virtual technologies. It addresses examples of historic buildings that have changed character, functions or got destroyed during times of wars and conflict. With advanced techniques of recording historic buildings through digital and virtual environments taking a leading role in modern preservation, integrating architectural heritage into the creative economy and income generating activities is critical to their survival in the digital age.

An activity theory perspective of how scenario-based simulations support learning: a descriptive analysis

BackgroundThe dominant frameworks for describing how simulations support learning emphasize increasing access to structured practice and the provision of feedback which are commonly associated with skills-based simulations. By contrast, studies examining student participants’ experiences during scenario-based simulations suggest that learning may also occur through participation. However, studies directly examining student participation during scenario-based simulations are limited. This study examined the types of activities student participants engaged in during scenario-based simulations and then analyzed their patterns of activity to consider how participation may support learning.MethodsDrawing from Engeström’s first-, second-, and third-generation activity systems analysis, an in-depth descriptive analysis was conducted. The study drew from multiple qualitative methods, namely narrative, video, and activity systems analysis, to examine student participants’ activities and interaction patterns across four video-recorded simulations depicting common motivations for using scenario-based simulations (e.g., communication, critical patient management).ResultsThe activity systems analysis revealed that student participants’ activities encompassed three clinically relevant categories, including (a) use of physical clinical tools and artifacts, (b) social interactions, and (c) performance of structured interventions. Role assignment influenced participants’ activities and the complexity of their engagement. Importantly, participants made sense of the clinical situation presented in the scenario by reflexively linking these three activities together. Specifically, student participants performed structured interventions, relying upon the use of physical tools, clinical artifacts, and social interactions together with interactions between students, standardized patients, and other simulated participants to achieve their goals. When multiple student participants were present, such as in a team-based scenario, they distributed the workload to achieve their goals.ConclusionThe findings suggest that student participants learned as they engaged in these scenario-based simulations when they worked to make sense of the patient’s clinical presentation. The findings may provide insight into how student participants’ meaning-making efforts are mediated by the cultural artifacts (e.g., physical clinical tools) they access, the social interactions they engage in, the structured interventions they perform, and the roles they are assigned. The findings also highlight the complex and emergent properties of scenario-based simulations as well as how activities are nested. Implications for learning, instructional design, and assessment are discussed.

Collaborative Affordances of Medical Records

This article proposes the concept of Collaborative Affordances to describe physical and digital properties (i.e., affordances) of an artifact, which affords coordination and collaboration in work. Collaborative Affordances build directly on Gibson (1977)’s affordance concept and extends the work by Sellen and Harper (2003) on the affordances of physical paper. Sellen and Harper describe how the physical properties of paper affords easy reading, navigation, mark-up, and writing, but focuses, we argue, mainly on individual use of paper and digital technology. As an extension to this, Collaborative Affordances focusses on the properties of physical and digital artifacts that affords collaborative activities. We apply the concept of Collaborative Affordances to the study of paper-based and electronic patient records in hospitals and detail how they afford collaboration through four types of Collaborative Affordances; being portable across patient wards and the entire hospital, by providing collocated access, by providing a shared overview of medical data, and by giving clinicians ways to maintain mutual awareness. We then discuss how the concept of Collaborative Affordances can be used in the design of new technology by providing a design study of a ‘Hybrid Patient Record’ (HyPR), which is designed to seamlessly blend and integrate paper-based with electronic patient records.

Stakeholder influence in public sector information systems strategy implementation—The case of public hospitals in South Africa

Recent literature on organisational strategy has called for greater emphasis on individuals (stakeholders) and what they do in the process of strategizing. Public sector organisations have to engage with an array of heterogeneous stakeholders in fulfilling their mandate. The public health sector in particular needs to engage with a diversity of stakeholders at local, regional and national levels when strategising. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of stakeholder relations on the implementation of Information Systems (IS) strategy in public hospitals in South Africa. An interpretive approach using two provinces was employed. The Activity Analysis and Development (ActAD) framework, an enhanced form of activity theory, was used as the theoretical framework. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews, meetings, documents analysis, physical artefacts and observation. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings reveal that IS strategy implementation in public hospitals involves a large and complex network of stakeholder groups at different levels, and over different time periods. These stakeholder groups act in accordance with formal and informal roles, rules and modalities. Various contextual conditions together with the actions of, and interactions between stakeholder groups give rise to the situationality of stakeholder relations dynamics and strategy implementation. The multiple actions and interactions over time lead to the realisation of some aspects of the IS strategy in public hospitals. Given the complexity and dynamism of the context there are also certain unplanned implementations as well. These relationships are captured in a Stakeholder Relations Influence (SRI) framework. The SRI framework can be assistive in the assessment and mapping of stakeholders and stakeholder relations, and the assessment of the implications of these relations for effective IS strategy implementation in public hospitals. The framework can also provide the basis for the development of appropriate corrective measures in the implementation of strategies and policies in public institutions such as public hospitals.

Understanding landscape change in a former brownfield site

The term palimpsest is sometimes used as a way of conceptualising historic cultural landscapes that have been subject to changes. This paper uses an expanded version of the palimpsest concept (a temporal collage intermingling memories with tangible and intangible elements from different time periods across a range of scales) to focus on a former military site on the Thames Estuary, which, after a period of dereliction, has been developed as a bird reserve. It examines different user interpretations of the present-day landscape in the light of its recent history and demonstrates how the physical traces and artefacts, the topography, memories and the relationship with the surrounding area all play a part in these interpretations. This landscape subverts a chronological reading and extends beyond the physical and temporal boundaries of the site enabling both the expert and non-expert to tell multiple and diverse stories with implications for landscape planning and design.

Constitutivism without Normative Thresholds

Constitutivist accounts in metaethics explain the normative standards in a domain by appealing to the constitutive features of its members. The success of these accounts turns on whether they can explain the connection between normative standards and the nature of individuals they authoritatively govern. Many such explanations presuppose that any member of a norm-governed kind must minimally satisfy the norms governing its kind. I call this the Threshold Commitment, and argue that constitutivists should reject it. First, it requires constitutivists to restrict the scope of their explanatory ambitions, because it is not plausibly true of social kinds. Second, despite the frequent reliance on physical artifacts in constitutivists’ illustrations of the Threshold Commitment, it counter-intuitively entails that physical artifacts can cease to exist without being physically destroyed. Third, it misconstrues the normative force of authoritative norms on very defective kind-members because it locates this force not in the norm, but in the threat of non-existence. Fortunately, constitutivism can be decoupled from the Threshold Commitment, and I close by sketching a promising alternative account.

Culture, technology and local networks: towards a sociology of ‘making’ in education

ABSTRACTThis article is about ‘making’ in education. Often associated with software programming (as in ‘digital making’), making can also involve creating or modifying physical technological artefacts. In this paper, making is examined as a phenomenon that occurs at the intersection of culture, the economy, technology and education. The focus is not on the effects on cognitive gains or motivations, but on locating making in a social, historical and economic context. Making is also described as a form of ‘material connotation’, where connotation refers to the process through which the technical structure of artefacts is altered by culture and society. In the second part of the paper, the theoretical discussion is complemented by a case study in which making is described as a networked phenomenon where technology companies, consultants, volunteers, schools, and students were all implicated in turning a nebulous set of practices and discourses into an educational reality.

Using photographs in interpreting cultural and symbolic meaning: A reflection on photographs of the Korean Association for Government Accounting

Building on a sociological tradition of using photographs as a methodology, we suggest that accounting researchers more fully utilize photographs to understand accounting actors’ everyday lives. While most accounting studies have focused on the photographic imagery in published documents, such as corporate annual reports, a few authors found photographs can highlight how physical artefacts can deliver symbolic messages. We explored photographs drawn from the Korean Association for Government Accounting (KAGA) to illustrate how social actors used physical artefacts. To guide our analysis, we relied on Bourdieu’s theorization of how physical artefacts reflect forms of capital. We argue that the use of photographs as a methodology provides a deeper insight into the cultural and social meanings of physical artefacts as a form of language open to multiple interpretations by both the author and the reader.

Revealing Work. Interrogating Artifacts to (Re)View Histories of Feminist Architectural Practice

Contemporary investigations of feminist practices in architecture from the near past rely upon scant and therefore precious sources. Many unique physical artifacts are lying, unarchived, in box files and plan chests or fading on bookshelves, and their meanings and associations remain caught in the era in which they were made. We have selected artifacts from 1970s and 80s feminist spatial practice in London that we, with others, were instrumental in creating, to re-examine, and to invite further commentaries. Through contextualizing them in their period–and interrogating through our own memories–we became particularly concerned to reappraise what counts as work; the work of actual doing; the work of finding ways to generate social change; the experiences of that work as embodied; and the work that the artifact itself does–how, through what happens to it in the world, it exceeds or alters what had been intended.

Gift politics: exposure and surveillance in the anthropocene

This article discusses the role of gift relations in the Anthropocene. We reinterpret Mauss’s original concept of the gift to understand its application and transformation in a social context that increasingly sees human behavior as a resource for the realization of governmental and corporate objectives. Contemporary gift relations focus on reciprocity through personal data instead of physical artifacts, and on promoting control and consumerism instead of forging moral and personal obligations. In our analysis, we distinguish two important elements. First, gifts are used to elicit voluntary exposure of personal data by individuals. In exchange for personal data, people are granted material or immaterial rewards. Second, gift relations have a pervasive element of surveillance that aims to influence behavior through personalized feedback or mechanisms of punishment and reward for good behavior.

Creating a healing environment: Transforming organizational identity through material practices

Past research on organizational identity management recognizes and extolls different perspectives on a somewhat limited group of actors who use a variety of linguistic, cognitive, and behavioral tactics to transform organizational identity. Yet, traces of materiality, or tangible, physical, and visual artifacts and objects can also be found in research on organizational identity. However, the emphasis has been on materiality that reveals organizational identity rather than materiality that transforms it. In this paper, we contend that extant research does not fully capture the critical role of material practices in transforming organizational identity. Through an inductive, qualitative field study at Community Hospital and AMC Hospital (both pseudonyms), two hospitals that legally merged in 1998, we found that a spectrum of actors engaged in three broad material practices–data sharing, renovating space, and co-branding–that contributed to the legitimation and transformation of organizational identity. Ultimately, we propose a material practice-based process model of organizational identity management and consider the contributions and implications of our theory to the broader literature on organizational identity management.